African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

by Frederick Courteney Selous

In a country so well stocked with antelopes, zebras, and buffaloes, carnivorous animals, it may well be supposed, were not wanting, and, indeed, in no part of Africa probably were lions, leopards, hyænas, wild dogs, and jackals more plentiful than they were in the neighbourhood of the lower Pungwe river at the time when Mr. Rhodes's pioneers first entered Mashunaland.

But all carnivorous animals are almost entirely nocturnal in their habits, and therefore only occasionally encountered in the daytime; and on the occasion of my first visit to this district I saw neither lions, hyænas, nor leopards, though the two former animals roared and howled nightly round my camp, and the grunting cry of the latter was often heard. Nor was I much more fortunate in this respect on my second visit to the same part of the country in 1892; for though I spent six weeks travelling and hunting between the Pungwe river and Lake Sungwe during October and November of that year, I only saw three lions, though there was not a single night during the trip on which I did not hear some of these animals roaring, sometimes close to camp, at others in the distance. On several occasions, too, I heard three different troops or families of lions roaring on the same night.

On the day when I saw the three lions, I had left camp with a few native followers very early in the morning, and was walking across an open plain studded with large ant-heaps, from which the long grass had been for the most part burnt off. On my right was a small river whose banks were fringed with a thick growth of scrubby bush. My course lay parallel to this river, but outside the strip of bush. Suddenly I came in sight of two lions at a distance of 400 or 500 yards out on the open plain. They were advancing at a slow walk towards the river and had been previously hidden from our view by some large ant-heaps. These two lions saw us at the same moment that we saw them, and at once halted and stood watching us. Telling my native attendants to sit down and remain where they were until my return, I commenced to walk towards the lions, hoping that they would allow me to approach within shot before running off, as I knew that these animals, which in many parts of Africa are very shy and wary, had very little fear of man in the Pungwe river district at that time. However, before I had advanced fifty paces, both lions turned round and commenced to walk slowly towards a small patch of long yellow grass which had escaped the last grass fire. They walked away from me at a very slow and leisurely pace. One seemed a monster, the other either a female or a young male with no mane.

I now commenced to run towards them, but had not gone far, when a third lion, that had previously been hidden by a large ant-heap, was suddenly revealed to me. He had evidently been walking over the plain about a hundred yards to the right of the other two lions, and not having seen me, did not understand why these latter had first come to a halt and then turned round and walked back again in the direction from which they had just come. When I first saw the third lion he was standing turned away from me and looking at the other two. Quickly swerving to the left, but without stopping, I almost immediately put a large ant-heap between us, and then ran to it at my utmost speed. This ant-heap was quite twenty feet in diameter at the base, and ten or twelve feet in height. I quickly climbed half-way up it and then looked round the side, and saw that the single lion was still standing watching the other two, which were at that moment just entering the patch of long grass of which I have already spoken.

I now edged myself in a sitting position to the side of the ant-heap nearest the lion and prepared for a shot. He was facing half away from me and something more than two hundred yards off; but there was not so much as a blade of grass in the shape of cover on the level burnt plain between us, and had I attempted to get nearer to him he would certainly have seen me at once and then trotted after his companions. So, steadying myself and taking a careful aim with the 200-yards' sight, I fired. My bullet must have passed close beneath the brutes chest—I think behind his forelegs—as I saw it knock up the dust just beyond him. He at once sprang to the spot where the bullet struck the ground and again stood still, facing now exactly away from me, without apparently having taken any notice of the report of my rifle—a 450-bore single-barrelled Gibbs-Metford.

Extracting the empty cartridge and pushing a fresh one into the breech, as silently and quickly as possible, I fired again, this time taking a fuller sight and aiming for the centre of the lion's somewhat narrow hind-quarters. The dull thud which answered the report of the rifle assured me that I had hit him, but I never saw a lion before make so little fuss about a wound. He gave one spring forwards, accompanied by a loud growl, and then stood still again. But only for a moment. Then he came trotting round towards where I sat on the side of the ant-heap, turning first to one side then to the other, and evidently searching for what had hurt him, and I am sure that had he made me out he would have charged instantly. However, I was dressed only in an old felt hat, a cotton shirt, and a pair of shoes, and my scanty garments and bare, sunburnt limbs were all so weather-stained, and harmonised so well with the neutral tints of my immediate surroundings, that he never saw me.

I had thrown the empty cartridge out of my rifle before the lion turned, but had no time to reload before he commenced to trot towards me, for, knowing that the very slightest movement on my part would attract his attention, I sat perfectly still, feeling sure that in case of a charge I should have ample time to slip the cartridge, which I held ready in my hand, into the breech of my rifle before he got to me. However, he never discovered me, though he approached to within a hundred yards of the ant-heap on the side of which I was sitting. He then stopped, and after first looking towards me, turned round and once more stood facing exactly away from me.

This was my chance, so hastily loading and putting down the 200-yards' leaf sight, I again fired at him, and again heard my bullet strike. With a loud growl he sprang forwards, and then went off at a gallop. He turned almost immediately and, running almost broadside to me, made for a large ant-heap with some bushes growing at the top of it. Before he reached it I fired again and knocked him down, but after having lain still for a few moments he got up and half-ran, half-dragged himself to the ant-heap and disappeared behind the bush on its summit.

I now walked round and reconnoitred the ant-heap behind which the lion had disappeared, and found that just beyond it there was a small patch of unburnt grass quite six feet high, in which, no doubt, he was hiding. To have approached this patch of long grass across the open plain would, I felt sure, have meant facing a fierce charge at close quarters, for the wounded lion had shown every sign of being a savage and determined animal.

About two hundred yards to the left of the place where the lion was lying was another ant-heap, at the foot of which grew two good-sized trees, and as I thought I might be able to see something from the top of one of them, I went back to where I had left my Kafirs, and taking one of them with me, made a circuit and came up behind the trees. My native attendant quickly climbed to the top of one of them, but declared he could see nothing of the lion, although he said that the patch of grass in which it was lying was very small. He then began to come down the tree again, talking all the time.